Yemeni president congratulates Sisi on re-election

CAIRO – 2 April 2018: Yemen's President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi expressed his wishes of progress and success in a cable sent on Monday to his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fatah al-Sisi after winning a second term.

Hadi asserted that his country shares deep-rooted and strong relations with Egypt, expressing his hope for more cooperation in various fields.

In a press conference on Monday, the National Election Authority announced the victory of Sisi over Ghad Party Chairman Moussa Moustafa Moussa in the 2018 presidential election.

President Sisi garnered 97.08 percent of valid votes in the presidential election last week, where more than 21.8 million people voted for him. His hardly-known competitor, Moussa Moustafa Moussa, received 656,534 votes, making up 2.9 percent of the valid ballots.

In a televised speech after winning the election, Sisi pledged to keep his promise in serving the nation and thanked all Egyptians for trusting him to lead the country.

“With complete honesty, I pledge to keep my promise with you and to dedicate myself to spare no efforts for our great nation,” Sisi said on Monday. The national unity that was shown during the election was strong evidence of Egypt’s solid power against those who wanted to undermine the country, he added.

Much like the 2014 election, when Sisi competed against well-known politician Hamdeen Sabahy, invalid votes ranked second in the poll. In the 2014 vote, 23.4 million people voted for Sisi, invalid votes accounted for one million ballots, and Sabahy won 740,000 votes.

In 2018, invalid votes made up 7.27 percent of the total votes, accounting for 1.762 million ballots. If invalid votes are not excluded from the result, Sisi's share of the total votes would be 90 percent.